Listening to this is like drinking from a fire hose.
Most bands take time off, then release a batch of new songs (ie, albums). Luca Turilli works this formula on a meta level: he takes a LOT of time off, then releases a flurry of albums. He has truly pathological release patterns. Counting both Rhapsody albums and solo releases, from 2000-2002 he released three albums and one EP. Then, a few years off. Then, in 2006, three new albums. Another break. Then, from 2010 to 2012, three new albums and one EP. Now, we’re coming off another 3 year break. Have the floodgates opened again?
Prometheus is a monstrous effort, and ranks among Turilli’s greatest work. The power metal is still there, fused against an even expanded backdrop of symphonic scoring, as well as an electronic element we haven’t heard from him since Prophet of the Last Eclipse. There’s so much of…everything that it becomes overwhelming. This is musical Where’s Waldo – a short exercise in what it’s like to have ADD.
“Il Cigno Nero” is fast and breezy, a power metal song with a lead guitar tone so crisp and sharp that each note seems rimed in frost. “Rosenkreuz” and “Anahata” are slower but attack from about the same angle. Choruses are large and powerful, but layered with that distinctive Rhapsody intrigue that makes you look forward to your tenth and twelve listen, just so you can appreciate the final small details.
“Yggdrasil” sports the album’s most diverting chorus, and would have made a good lead single. “One Ring to Rule Them All” has a massive build-and-release in the prechorus leading into the chorus, as well as an appealing folk metal bridge. Final track “Codex Nemesis” is 18 minutes of the densest and most intricate music Luca’s composed to date. I think I had to listen to all the other songs twice before I felt equipped to understand this one.
There’s a lot of things this album is, and a few things it isn’t. It’s not a power metal assault like the final two Rhapsody of Fire albums. The guitars exist only as one instrument among many. It’s not really as much of a “band” effort as some seem to be looking for – I’ll take Luca’s word that there’s a guy playing bass along with this, because I sure can’t hear him in the mix. But that’s not what this project was meant to be. It was designed to push the Rhapsody sound as far in one direction as it would go.
Does it work? Listen to “Solomon and the 72 Names of God”, for example, and tell me. It’s not a question of whether the album has things to give. It’s a case of whether you’re equipped to capture it all. The nozzle of the Luca Turilli fire hose now stands before you, and someone just unkinked the pipe.
It doesn’t take much rope for some people to hang themselves. “Overnight” is a 2003 documentary about someone who hung himself with six inches of empty air. Troy Duffy was a bartender in LA with a screenplay, and he received an opportunity that hardly ever happens to bartenders in LA with a screenplay – a major production and distribution deal from Harvey Weinstein. Thrilled, he immediately hired a couple of local filmmakers to make a documentary about his assured rise to fame and riches. They ended up capturing a Hindenburg disaster on film.
When aliens land and ask us for positive reasons why we shouldn’t be assimilated, I don’t there’ll be many fingers pointing at Troy Duffy. Arrogant, belligerent, with a tendency for insulting the big-name actors that he’s supposed to be schmoozing, he’s never made a movie before, and hasn’t even been to film school. He brags about showing up to production meetings hungover and wearing last night’s trousers. He has one talent: malapropism. “We’re a cesspool of creativity!” he exclaims. Elsewhere, he schools a naysayer: “Get used to my film career, ‘cuz it ain’t going anywhere.”
His boorish antics land him on Hollywood’s collective shit-list, and soon he receives a call from Weinstein. His film has been put into dreaded “turnaround” mode, halting production until a new deal can be negotiated. When a new offer to pick up the film emerges, its financing is very, very thin. And when the film is made, nobody wants to distribute it.
Another plot thread involves Duffy’s band, The Brood, who received a label deal to score the soundtrack to his film. His bandmates soon come to suspect that Duffy is not sharing his sudden windfall equally. At first Duffy says they don’t deserve a share of the royalties. Then, he moderates his position. “You do deserve it, but you’re not gonna get it.”
Things go from disaster to disaster, with Duffy’s family, co-producers, and bandmates going along for the ride (it’s not their first time dealing with this guy. You think they suspect there’ll be rubbernecking opportunities aplenty). As his projects steadily burn down, there’s endless scenes of Troy either partying or being a jackass. No doubt he fancies himself a work-hard-play-hard type, like Howard Hughes. But he hasn’t actually achieved anything yet. He’s like a runner who wants the champaign popped at the 900m line.
The documentary is fairly narrow in focus. We don’t see the critical moment where Duffy negotiates the film deal in the first place. And it doesn’t delve into the conspiracy theories about why Weinstein took a chance with Duffy, even if only for a figurative moment. It’s been speculated that he never planned to make Duffy’s film, that The Boondock Saints was destined for turnaround since day one, and it was just a PR stunt for his company. Yank a peasant out of the mud, and put a crown on his head. Then, when the cheering crowds are gone, quietly take it away. We don’t know if this is what happened. It’s certainly about as plausible as Weinstein trusting Duffy with millions of his dollars.
Ironically, Duffy’s film has proven to be massively popular on DVD. Unfortunately, he signed a contract that does not make him party to DVD profits.
Some books keep you at arms’ length from their characters misery. Ann Sterzinger shoves your nose in it, like you’re a misbehaving dog and the book is your mistake. In one sense, it’s very funny. In another sense, it’s not funny at all. It doesn’t matter who you are. If you’re made of carbon, SOMETHING in this book will hit too close to home.
Lester Reichertsen was a punk rock musician until his band kicked him out, seemingly on the verge of their big break. Now he’s living a fairly typical death in the world of academia. His dissertation is proving as painful as root canal surgery. He works as a put upon TA at the local college. He almost hates his son. He’s not drifting away from his wife, but only because they were probably never close to begin with. He is alienated from everyone, including himself. In short, he is a human anchor, plumbing the depths of the middle class by colliding with the bottom head-first. He’s a Holden Caulfield grown old enough to see himself become one of the phoneys.
The book is a succession of partly comic, partly ghastly events that illustrate the emptiness of his life. Encounters with his father and his father-in-law, unreconstructed narcissists both. A run-in with his old band. A young woman who might be the Lolita to his Humbert Humbert. All of it serves to reaffirm that he’s not insane, he’s just stuck in an insane world. How does he function? Is there ANY way to function? As you approach the end of Nvsqvam, it’s with a growing sense of apprehension, as though the thinning sheaf of pages is a ticking bomb. There can’t possibly be an escape for Lester.
The book is intense and grim, but it’s funny, too. Sterzinger induces cringe-laughter so frequently that I think my neural pathways have been trained to never again do one without the other. Like A Confederacy of Dunces (a book this sometimes reminds me of) Nvsqvam‘s characters seem stylised and exaggerated without seeming fake. This is another one of those books where you’ll meet every jerk you’ve ever known in its pages, if you’re not careful.
It also has an interesting metafictional angle, similar to Will Self’s The Book of Dave (although Sterzinger doesn’t go as far with the concept). It’s written in a way that invokes an classical document, filled with footnotes to help explain 21st century culture to some far-future student. At first, these footnotes seemed distracting. But they’re hilarious, and soon one looks forward to them – it’s like the book just proffered you a hors d’ourve. And I liked the way the events of Lester’s life become intertwined with the classical text he’s writing his dissertation on.
As the book progresses, the early gathering of stormclouds builds to a cat-5 gale. Nvsqvam is an exhausting book, and reading in small passages is recommended and perhaps necessary.
But it’s honest, and that makes it all the more painful. The publisher printed the title of the book at the top of every page – in an eerie way, this almost seems to become part of the text. Occasionally, Lester has small reversals of fortune. Sometimes, there’s a ray of hope. But your false hope is crushed anew every time you turn the page by a reminder that no matter what’s happening, you’re still Nowhere.
